Uneven Ambitions: Explaining National Differences in Proposed Emissions Reductions

Large-scale commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions have been difficult to achieve, in part because we do not understand the social conditions that encourage mitigation. An analysis of variations across countries’ emissions reduction plans, submitted for the United Nations’ 2015 Paris conference, provides a way to identify the conditions that make societies more likely to commit to emissions reductions. A metric created from a country’s pledged emissions reductions and its baseline year for calculating emissions makes it possible to compare ambition across countries. Possible explanations for cross-national differences in ambition come from different approaches in environmental social science. Societies with ecologically modernized technologies, without fossil fuel–dependent treadmills of production, with mobilized citizens, and with effective governance adopted more ambitious mitigation plans. Given their importance in shaping the 2015 emissions reduction plans, these same social forces could play important roles in the future acceleration of emissions reduction commitments.